Come Quickly Danger
(CQD as opposed to SOS)
It’s a constant battle: Who’s got the newest, most up to date wireless device? Who’s fresh to def like a million bucks? In the 90’s it was line-ups for video game consoles and that spread to wireless devices in the 2000’s. Well, we all want the latest, the newest brand name tech and many will leverage solid financials in order to get it.
Remember that 1st week after Christmas holiday when the other kids came back to school with Gameboys, and you just had to beat level one in Tetris? It seemed like my youth was filled with epic moments of tech-jealousy and I approached my paper route with gusto in order to be that kid on the playground with a Mini-Disc.
New tech always comes with detractors, but as most of us know, technology marches Unrelentlessly forward and the benefits are incalculable. Being able to communicate with others over distances, great or small, saves lives and the evening of April 15th, 1912, Marconi’s telegraph communication saved many, many lives.
Now the name “Titanic” doesn’t usually foster much shine and instill confidence, hope and glimmer in the recipient’s ears when it comes to the topic of saving lives. One might even say that it was good olde fashioned hard work and engineering that made up the difference…but if it wasn’t for Marconi’s brand-new wireless technology, via telegrams, many more souls, people…entire families could have been wiped clean out of our common ancestry.
Today we use various apps, services, cell phones and even landlines to communicate, but think about it this way: Marconi had the very first wireless messaging app…ever heard of telegrams? Well Marconi had a radio based wireless telegram. Not like your Grand Pappy’s pony express sent via parchment, this telegram broadcasts your desires across the pond instantaneously. (Encryption to come later ;) This allowed the crew’s desperate pleas and updates on their status to eventually reach help.
We now use typeface, voice and even emoji to communicate in the modern age, but during this frightful evening Mores Code was the language of choice. Come Quickly Danger (CQD as opposed to SOS) was all the rage that fateful April morning as the Titanic sank ever deeper into the treacherous North Atlantic.
Nowadays we may initially fawn over with the interest at an emergency mass SMS alert. However, it can quickly become the ever-present spam akin to an online casino flooding your inbox every 18.5 minutes. So, by most accounts, the Titanic’s messages seemed not to have been taken seriously initially by the recipients, for this was the great and mighty Titanic we are talking about…The unsinkable ship!
There are many mysteries, half truths and unsolvable questions surrounding the Titanic, but what we now realize is that technology will always play an important part in our collective struggle for life. People wonder, “Did the Cpt or First Officer shoot himself? Was Jack really blond? How many lifeboats were actually functional? I’m inclined to believe that Archibald Gracie would have heard the sound of a pistol and Gracie seemed to have reported a positive nature about Murdoch and the Cpt…Doubting any sullen or withdrawn nature about either of them so I am inclined to believe otherwise.
Cpt Smith via the Californian, got news that there were ice warnings from Jack Phillips and if Jack hadn’t received the warnings, the situation would have been much worse. When they say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, they haven’t fully totaled up the entire weight of the Liner from the Stewards to the upper deck. This warning was worth many, many thousands of pounds. Just like the modern era, equipment reliability and function is of utmost importance, so as with Phillips' broken device, the Ice warning was delayed during the evening and only transferred to the Cpt once Herald Bride woke up.
The Olympic would clog up communications with unnecessary replies, and essentially idle talk... “I’m lighting up the boilers as fast as we can.” “You fool…Keep out” Phillips snapped.
It held true in Marconi’s era
It held true in my mother’s era
It holds true today.
Only one person can talk at a time,
Even on the party line.
Communication and the livelihood good communication can afford one’s status, is Paramount.
Patrick O’Neal
